Nice day at the shop

Christopher and I spent the day at the shop. We threw his bike in my truck and took off about 11 this morning. We have been building a checkerboard and he wanted to make the checkers today. Spending the day with my 6 yr old at he shop is the best. He has inherited my “love” of sanding. We had to sand the checkers made from 1 1/4 dowel slices.

Managed to sand the checkerboard to 150. I forgot how difficult it was too sand oak (and birch). Need ot look up tonight how ot repair. I heard of making filler from the fine sawdust so I collected some and brought it home with me tonight. Looks like I’m going to be making alot of repairs in my newest woodworking journey. If anyone reads this and can’t make a suggestion on how ot fix minor imperfections like that miter that wold not close, please let me know.

Can you give a little more information on the miter that you want to close? Is it like a picture frame or like a table leg where the miter would run the length of the leg? On a furniture leg type of miter you can often burnish it with the back of a chisel which will close the miter somewhat. If it is more of a picture frame you can recut the joint with a hand saw and wedge a piece of the same or contrasting material into the cut and glue it into place. Filling is another option but often shows. I have also ran a router over the miter and inlaid a piece of contrasting wood into the resulting groove and hand planed it down after the glue had dried. The customer in this case was delighted with the resulting look and even had me frame a mirror using the same “technique”. I am not sure I ever got around to confessing that it was an error correction and not a design feature.

The miter is a picture frame miter tht wraps around the checkerboard. I got 3 of them faily tight; and I think I must have cut one of them too short so there is a gap. I’m not as concerned with the repair showing since this is a checkeboard for my son and I don’t think he will care if there is a gap (or a finish for that matter). But, I wanted to use this as a learning experiance for making repairs. I hear you can mix glue and sawdust but how much of each? If glue will not take a finish, I guess it is a delicate balance.

I’m going to have to sneak it back to the shop and finish sanding so I on’t have time for an inlay but I will try that on my next screw up which should not take too long.